And speaking of sandpaper…

So, you folks don’t like sanding, huh? Well, here’s something sanding-related that you will like.

There is one thing I hate about sanding, and that’s not being able to effectively sand in a particularly hard-to-reach spot. I came up with an idea a number of years ago that worked for me, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

Take a PSA sanding disc of any size. I originally did this with a 9” adhesive disc from my benchtop disc sander, but any sticky-back disc will do. I wanted a fresh disc on my sander and so I peeled off the old one, but before tossing it I folded it in half right down the middle. It folded over and stuck together nicely. I tossed it into the trash.

The next day I needed to sand in a tough spot but the folded sandpaper I was using wasn’t stiff enough to be effective, and I didn’t have a sanding block thin enough to wrap the paper around. I grabbed that folded-over sanding disc out of the trash and even though the abrasive was past its prime (which is why I had changed it in the first place) it still sanded that spot perfectly. Since then, I keep two of these folded-over discs in the tray of my workbench at all times, once coarse and one fine.

Need something even stiffer? Easy. Just take a fresh disc, fold it over some 1/8” plywood, and then trim the plywood into a half-circle.

A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.